|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Global Threat of Unchecked Population Growth
| Article
# : |
21935 |
|
|
Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
4,919 Words |
| Author
: |
Garrett Hardin
Garrett Hardin is professor emeritus of human ecology at the
University of California, Santa Barbara, and has long been
concerned with population issues. His most recent book is
Living within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population
Taboos (Oxford University Press, 1993). |
Although almost two centuries have passed since Malthus distributed the slumbers of humanity with his dire predictions of overpopulation, the controversy has still not abated. In the final analysis, the only way to approach this problem beneficially is through the application of unremitting common sense and unwavering objectivity.
In addition, I would submit, in order to allow common sense and objectivity their free rein, we must avoid the trap of statistic slinging. In what we could take as a helpful warning, one public-spirited statistician, Darrell Huff, once penned a light-hearted book titled How to Lie with Statistics. And Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria's favorite prime minister, said: "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Scientists are inclined to argue with this, holding that statistics (properly used) are one of the glories of the scientific method. But since statistics are often not properly used, it must be admitted that Huff and Disraeli had a point. As used, statistics are often a sort of black magic accompanied by a disparagement of common sense. That won't do. As the logician Willard Van Orman Quine has said, "Science itself is a continuation of common sense."
Therefore, this essay will avoid statistics. The opaqueness of statistical arguments makes it easy for analysts to "get away with murder." Though often wonderfully useful, statistics can also serve as a substitute for thought. And empirical findings, the fodder of statistics, are so numerous and so ambiguous that almost any conclusion can be supported by a plausible argument. But empirical studies have great prestige in our science-sensitized society, particularly because they can be so selected and arranged as to seem to support faith in perpetual growth, the religion of the most powerful actors in a commercial society.
The literature on human population growth is enormous. Blessedly, most of it can be safe ignored. A handful of principles enables us to incorporate the meaning of a great mass of data in a few memorable images, which the following attempts to provide.
THE DWINDLING OF CONCERN OVER POPULATION GROWTH
There is today, of course, a sharp division of opinion about the seriousness of human population growth. On the one hand, a legion of economists say, "Why worry? An increase in people doesn't matter, because an unfettered market
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
